A Day Without Fanfare

Kurt turned 40 today. Someone asked me what I was giving him and I think they were a little disappointed when I said I was simply going to pretend it wasn't his birthday. Seriously, I learned very early on in our relationship that the last thing on Earth he wants is attention, especially on his birthday. That surprise party I planned for him when he turned 28? I don't think he spoke to me for a week. Lesson learned. Matter of fact, I think the only thing that makes him more uncomfortable than unwanted attention is the Urologist, or any discussion about his experience with the Clip and Snip (which sends him crawling into the attic where he cowers in fetal position under three feet of insulation....holding his shot gun....well, in his mind anyway.)

So, this year when he said he was taking the day off, I packed up the two little ones and left the house for the majority of the day. Best present ever, so I was told.

But really, the kids and I decided that the best (i.e. least expensive) gift we could give, one that he would truly appreciate, would be a total family/life make-over, starting with our diets. You see, we are a fairly normal family. In our crazy busy lives, we fall back on eating too much processed junk and too little whole food goodness. While I might load up on lean proteins and veggies (because I am addicted to kale) and anything else that may give me that little edge in my training, I fall way short on forcing my kids (and husband) to eat so intentionally. If they had their way, I believe they would live on bagels and ice cream with an extra shot of corn syrup and trans fat and a side couple plates of bacon, each!

So, since it is Kurt's 40th birthday we decided, (and by 'we decided' I mean I decided and dragged them along kicking and screaming), that we would go the next 40 days enjoying the foods in our house, eating through our pantry and cupboards, making all the meals and treats and desserts our hearts desire, until all sugar and refined flour and processed junk is gone. During this period, we will begin to slowly fill our kitchen with mostly whole, fresh foods. After the 40 days of easing into it, we are going to try to maintain a 40 day fast from processed sugars. (I was hoping to go all out and do an entire elimination diet but I think my kids might actually die from eating only apples and bananas so we will start with what I believe is the biggest food issue in our family: too much processed sugar.)

At the same time, we are also going to be having a little come to Jesus with our clutter problem. For the next 40 days, we are going to be getting rid of 21 things each day. That's 840 things that will make their way out of our house and into the hands of someone who needs them more. And we'll all live happily ever after. The end.

But seriously, after the day off and house to himself, homemade pizza, Costco cake and four different kinds of ice cream to choose from, Kurt is in heaven (or perhaps that is just a sugar coma, I can't be sure). I think this may have been his best birthday ever. Well, except for the giving up sugar part. Wish us luck!

For When Things Get Out of Control

For when things get out of control, there I will be also. -- Jesus (my paraphrase)

You know things have gotten out of control.....

1. When you see your two-year old walk out of a room and hear him say, as clear as day, "Ah, F#&k it! (I do not take credit for this one as I assure you, that is not my bad word of choice!)

2. When there is not enough furniture in your child's room to keep him in his bed.

His escape plan

3.  When your donation pile looks like this......

.....EVERY MONTH! 

(Seriously, this is a major issue; so major that it appears even the cat is ready to jump ship! I will be addressing clutter over the next couple of weeks....I know, I know, I can hardly wait either....)

4. When you have to remove a towel, two drumsticks and a cat bed from the shower before you can use it. (While I'm fairly confident I know who is responsible, I am hesitant to speculate on the why of it.)

5. When this is how you find your two-year old eating his lunch....

 .....of Girl Scout Cookies.... and you feel pretty good because this is improvement over the random teddy grahams he found (and ate) off the floor out in public the other day.....

If Jesus is with us more the more things get out of control, then by golly, I think he's got us surrounded.....perhaps it's time to surrender. The good news is, I am pretty certain order can be restored with just a little 'casting out of the demons'.....well, really one in particular.....

Confessions to a Police Officer

A police officer visited Liam's class last week. When I returned to pick him up the teacher told me:

"So, Liam told the policeman that his mommy drives 'super fast.'"

"Gee, thanks Liam! Throw me under the bus why don't you?!" I said, laughing.

"The policeman told him to tell you to slow down," she continued jovially.

"Yeah, it's tough when your number-loving five year old regularly monitors how fast you are going and anything above the speed limit is considered 'super fast,'" I said.

"Oh, that's not so bad really," the teacher went on. "[Liam's little classmate] told the policeman that her daddy has a set of handcuffs 'just like those' in his bedroom*."

Um, yeah, I'll own up to that "super fast driving" confession, and heck, even throw in an occasional lead-foot through a changing yellow light. And I might have to repress some giggles when I greet aforementioned parents at drop offs because, well, just because.

*For purposes of writing integrity, I'm not certain that the teacher mentioned just where her dad keeps his handcuffs or if my juvenile brain unintentionally filled in the blanks, but really, does that change a whole lot? Raise your hand if you own a pair of real hand cuffs.....on second thought, don't. I don't really want to know!

The Challenge

I overheard this conversation today:

The Computer-Shaped Game: "I'm Superman. Are you ready to face the challenge?"

Two year old Solomon, holding game to his face: "YESSSSSS! I weddy to face the challenge!" And then he patiently stood there, ready and eagerly waiting. For what? He had no clue.

I think this is what Jesus must have meant when he told us to have faith like a child. Solly had no idea what "the challenge" involved. I don't think he even knows what a challenge is actually. None the less, he was ready, declaring, "Yes, I'm all in!" before he even knew what was in store.

But we are a busy people. We want to plan, prepare, organize. We want task forces and focus groups. We want details and dates and then the proper amount of time to discern and decide. Yet, this God of ours, whose tendency is to qualify the called and not the other way around, wants us to respond like a child: Yes Lord, I'm in. I'm ready to face the challenge.

As I watched Solomon a little later banging the game against the wall in utter frustration, I began to wonder, am I really all in? Am I ready? And exactly what am I ready for?

The challenge will be a little different for each of us, but I'm fairly certain its wrapping is grace, its voice is love, its shape is God's and day by day, its power transforms us to better resemble Jesus. And with any luck at all, there won't be any banging it against the wall!

For that, we boldly declare as God's children: Yes! I'm all in!

TMI: Post-Baby Breasts

Warning: This post contains things you may not want to know. If you are the least bit prim, proper or prude, easily offended or embarrassed, don't like to know too much personal information about anyone other than yourself and maybe not even then, think that certain subjects are completely taboo and off limits, and so on and so forth, then this post is not for you. Please turn around now, find something more bland to read, like the minutes from CSPAN and perhaps steer clear of this blog forevermore. For the rest of you, you should be ashamed of yourselves! Just kidding, sit back and relax but know you have been warned. 

Around Valentine's Day, I thought I would check out some stuff at Victoria's Secret. Now, for those of you who have kids, or simply a working brain, you know that pregnancy (and breastfeeding) irrevocably changes female bodies. (With the exception of my grandmother who swears that after her fifth child her breastfeeding ladies just stayed on for good.....a gene, dear readers, that I assure you I completely failed to inherit....if anything, mine mutated in the other direction!) So, minus certain "medical" procedures (and by medical I mean purely cosmetic) there is simply no way to fix the damage that is done to a woman's breasts post-babies. (Especially if you happen to have very little body fat because you run 16 miles when you have stomach bugs and then wonder why you look like a cross between an emaciated nine year old and something out of the National Geographic Goes Tribal edition...Sorry Kurt, didn't mean to spoil the fantasy me you have amazingly managed to hold onto all these years....seriously, the guy's a saint....you know, if saints weren't mostly celibate....and played video games in lieu of performing miracles.....)

Anyway, they just don't tell you these kinds of things in school, which is really kind of stupid because if they were to show a bunch of teenagers the before and after shots of the female body (pre- and post-pregnancy/breastfeeding), those kids would all take vows of celibacy, problem solved!

They also don't tell you about this in childbirth classes. Perhaps they think it isn't as important as the proper way to hee-hee-hee-hooooo during contractions, which I will tell you is NOT what it sounded like when the primitive me took over and gnashed its gnarly teeth and growled its deep guttural growls during labor. There was no pretty hee-hee-hee-hooing at all actually. But after all the talk of epidurals, episiotomies and placentas, I would have liked to know what to do about deflated boobs.

So, this year I thought maybe I could look into it a little. You know, try out some pretty little somethings that would both enhance them and hide them without resorting to costly invasive surgical procedures, that may or may not be dangerous to my long term health but would definitely leave me feeling a little awkward, a lot fake, way behind budget, a bit out of touch with my priorities and perhaps a wee bit totally awesome!

So one night I got online and started browsing the Victoria's Secret website and discovered that apparently they don't see the need to make busty lingerie for those of us with the tiniest of busts....it's kind of ironic, right? Like, hey, you are so small (and yet so freakishly saggy) that it's kind of an embarrassment we don't want to bother with....but see that well endowed teenie-bopper over there? Yeah, we're gonna make her look even bigger! Don't let that bra snap you on the way out!

I was discouraged to say the least. But then I remembered getting sized at Nordstrom last year so I ran up to my closet to figure out the brands of the perfectly fitting bras I remortgaged our house for bought. I was even more discouraged when I realized exactly what size they had put me in. (No, I had never bothered looking before as I was just happy they fit right so that I could escape from the dressing room in which the salesclerk, who was seemingly half my age, was watching me try on bras while assuring me she had seen worse....) Let's just say, I didn't even know they made bras that small. I am surprised they didn't send me to the pre-teen section and have me buy training bras actually. I mean, let's be honest, I have never been a busty gal but at least I had a little perky something before and could fit into a bra that didn't have to be specially made. Now a days, with 5 kids having completely drained me of any breast tissue and the running taking off the last of the remaining fat, I have like, well, nothing. No. Less than nothing. Actually, truth be told, they almost suck backwards into my chest wall as if my heart has to borrow all their mass and air to just. keep. beating..... I am surprised the doctor hasn't said anything actually. Like, "Gee Karen, where the heck did your breasts sneak off to? You actually don't have space for lumps, why bother with this check-up at all!" Matter of fact, I am thinking she only tells me to do a monthly self-check because she has to for liability reasons. After all, if a lump showed up, I'd have to move up a bra size and I think I'd notice.....

Ah, but I digress. So, there I was online, realizing I am pathetically boy like, or just pathetic, and not even Nordstrom had anything online in my size. So, I quickly went to the manufacturers website and started browsing their bras and lingerie. Only, every time I liked something, they didn't make it in my size either. So, then I wised up and did a search for my specific bra size and darn if that website didn't start a belly laugh like I have never heard before! Just hooting and hollering away. I think I even heard a knee smack. And after it was done calling all its friends over, pointing at me and making painful Dear God, It's Me Margaret jokes, it finally directed me to the right section: The Asian Bra Collection.

Dead. Serious.

Now, I am not one to make over generalized jokes about specific groups of people but how is that not hysterical?!  At first I was like, the Asian Bra Collection, really? Why would they make a collection specific for Asian women? Are they really that much different than other women? But then as luck would have it, the very next day as I was walking through the locker room at the gym I came face to face with a very slender Asian woman in the buff and I was all, "Oooooooh" and it took everything I had to contain my inner giggles and not exclaim: "Hey twinsy!" I'm sure she'd have been flattered and want to be my bosom buddy.....(snicker snicker....)

So, a few days later, after telling my friend this story she says, well Karen, why don't you just go to that place down the street (the one that caters to breast cancer survivors and mastectomy patients), I'm sure they could help you.

Gee, that's so tempting....

And so not that important!

Perspectives on Gastroenteritis

If you have been here long enough then you know there is nothing I love more than a good, old fashioned stomach bug to savage the house, leaving no one behind. Ah yes, what would the world be like without such bold little germies ravaging our digestive system until we're fairly certain we just lost our colon?

Much better, that's what! I often wonder what the heck was going through God's mind on the eighth day when he decided that what the world really needed now were some pain in the ass germs to wreck havoc on families all over the good, green Earth! Yay, God. Nice going on that one! Really, we appreciate the occasional deep cleaning, thanks....right up there with a good root canal sans Novacaine....performed by a lab money on crack....

But seriously, last week was one of those weeks. No one was spared. Not even the cat. (Although my guess is his issues have nothing to do with ours....just a hunch.) But I learned a very valuable lesson last week that I must share with you so pay attention; this is important stuff. Apparently, it is NOT a good idea to run 16 miles when you have a stomach bug. For those who are non-runners, or at least non-crazy runners, or perhaps just not me, you are shaking your heads: "Well, duh. Who in their right mind would think to run 16 miles when they were that sick?"

Uh, me? In my defense, I don't claim to be in my right mind while training for marathons. I think those two things are mutually exclusive actually. I'll google it and get back to you. But seriously, after those first few miles, when I had to jump off the treadmill and run to the bathroom, I thought, well, that was weird but maybe the pheasant we ate the night before (you know, the ones that Kurt hunted last fall) just didn't sit right. So, I kept going. After the next pit stop, another 5 or so miles later, I started wondering if maybe it was more than the pheasant. (You'd think the sick kids would have given that away....) Then, after 16 miles, when I was done with that days mileage yet stuck in the bathroom I realized: Houston, we have a problem.

Between the dehydration from running (with my legs and otherwise) and my inability to eat more than half a banana, I lost just under five pounds that day. It's like the diet they don't like to publicize because it is so darn effective they are afraid everyone will try it. And then die. (No, I don't know who "they" are either. Just go with it.) By the end of the day, I started looking a wee bit less like an athlete and a wee bit more like one of those shrunken heads on a stick you see in the movies. I thought I might be scaring the children but they seemed morbidly obsessed with sitting in the bathroom and watching me wallow in my vulnerability. Such good times we had. Oh yes we did.

But, the best part was that it gave me a chance to find out what really goes on in my bathroom when I am not there.

First, there was Solly making monster silhouettes behind the window shade up behind my bathtub.
(Imagine the photo here because apparently, although I thought I was taking cellphone pictures from the luxury of my throne, not a single one survived the upload before my computer joyfully erased them....at least that is what I think happened....it couldn't have been that I was too out of my mind to not actually be taking the pictures I thought I was taking....)

Then, there was Solly chasing the cat into the shower, holding him captive inside. I wasn't so worried about Solly being in the shower, actually it might be a fairly safe place to keep him come to think of it. But in this instance he had taken a drum stick with him and well, it didn't seem to bode well for the cat because if there is one thing cats like less than water, it is a two year old wielding a drum stick.

Finally, there was Solly crawling up onto the counter, getting all cozy in the sink and then rattling a bottle of medicine while playing with the electric razor.

Remind me to get a lock for my bathroom door.

Have a great week y'all. And remember, keep those hands washed up right nice! And when you get sick anyway, look on the bright side, if you can find it.....(Hint: it can usually be found about 24-48 hours later.....good luck!)

Deb Saves

Do you have a personal deity? I am not talking about God or making an idol of money or material possessions or what not. I really mean, does someone in your life fill the role of savior? Because I have to tell you folks, if I wasn't told explicitly that it is not okay for me to adopt a god other than the one and only, I would swear by the hairs on my chinny chin chin that my friend Deb was my personal savior sent here to save my derriere on a semi-regular basis.

First she has gifted us with enough hand-me down toys to save a birthday and a Christmas or two. Remember that terrifying bounce house this Christmas? It has become such a big hit that I think I may have to put it away for a while just to keep the kids from bouncing all the intelligence from their brains. (It has been a true sanity saver for mom though.) She has lent me books and audio programs on parenting, offered countless hours of judgement-free listening and honest, life saving advice (no seriously, she has saved at least one child from being sent off to boarding school and just last month she put things into perspective in such a way that I forgot my plans to lock them in a closet somewhere in Siberia, or down the street, whichever is colder.....) and most recently she has helped save my marriage.

What? What did that say? Did that say there was a monster at the end of this book? Well kiss my grits! Pull out the wine 'cause here come those skeletons! (No, not really.)

Well, ever so often in the life of some married people, this funny thing happens (that no one seems to talk about). They start wondering what the heck they are doing, putting up with this other person, their flaws, foibles and all. And then this avalanche of negativity begins, leading to a lonely pit of resentment and despair until one day they wake up (after having been up four different times with four different kids the night before so obviously they are now perfectly rational and thinking totally straight) and they think, something's gotta give. And usually, once they are done with the finger pointing, it means looking in the mirror and realizing that the change needs to start with self and that grace needs to take it from there, stretching its sticky little fingers out to every nook and cranny of the relationship and on out to the entire family until nothing is left untouched, unloved, unforgiven. But sometimes, when that mirror is too harsh and everything seems a little fuzzy and grace seems too far off in the distance, it takes a friend to offer a reality check.

So one day, after a long conversation on my recent personal struggle to stay happily married, Deb handed me this video series called the Us Factor. Totally cheaper than therapy and much more humorous watching TV couples go through the arguing and miscommunication that most marriages experience from time to time. It took over a month for us to forgo a night of TV comedy and get started on the thing (and even then it was a last resort, a "gee, we are all out of shows tonight, I suppose we should watch some of this") but I'm glad we did. It is so much more fun to laugh at and judge the silly things those OTHER couples are struggling with. It has brought a sense of peace and calm back to this rocky terrain. This one little step is all it has taken for us to get back on the right track because: "Doesn't that woman know she married a serial killer? Just look at him! Whoa, I think his head is twitching a little. You'd think Gollum, the Turtle-head therapist would mention this fact and tell her to get out now before it's too late! Run, lady, run!"

Ok, so maybe maturity is one place for me personally to start but seriously, there is nothing that makes you feel more at ease with your own issues than listening to the same issues in others. And laughing. Because the truth is, we all have them, some people just hide them better than others. (And apparently some people are far better actors than others, too!)

Thank God for grace. And for Deb. (I'd offer to give out her number but nothing in the Good Book says I have to share this particular savior with anyone! Plus, I take too much of her time for her to save the rest of you! Oh, and she has a real job too so really, she just wouldn't be able to fit you in. Sorry. It's not you. It's her...)

Thanks Deb!